Yelled at in Cisco, he has redefined networking now

Creating new categories from the ground up, especially in the enterprise-software sector, happens once in a blue moon. Martin Casado, the father of software-defined networking, knows that only too well. The PhD student at Stanford University had his thesis “unilaterally rejected“ by the academics in 2003. After his presentation to top architects at Cisco, he was yelled out of the room.“People were angry, `This won't work!' and `Nobody wants this!' and `That's not how you do networking!' It was just really ­ like a real very visceral and emotional response,“ said Casado, recounting an incident from his graduate days.

Cisco did not comment till the time of going to print.

Casado's thesis explored methods to virtualise networking, adding a software layer to off-therack hardware, freeing customers from the constraints of proprietary hardware and software sold by the likes of companies such as Cisco.

But having understood that he struck a nerve, Marc Andreessen of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz put in $200,000 (. `1.3 crore) in the company much before the venture capital firm was even established.

In May 2007, he defended his thesis, and in June, he set up Nicira, which in Sanskrit means `vigilant'. Five years later, the company was bought over by virtualisation software maker VMWare for $1.26 billion. Just this year, Nicira's product had a revenue run rate of $200 million.

While Indian startups in the consumer internet businesses have several role models to look up to, the scenario in core enterprise segment is somewhat bleak.

Casado, one of the few recent successes in this space, says to successfully create new categories within the enterprise space, startups should do two “very hard things“--introduce a new concept in people's brains, so that they wake up in the morning and think about your object. Secondly, attach value to it, so that they set aside budgets for something that has never existed before.

“So much of early technology is CTOevangelical discussion. It's not building it,“ said Casado,38, who worked with US government agencies on classified network security issues as a part of his stint at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“Casado is a pioneer who redefined networking. Because of his contributions, VMWare got a foothold into OpenStack (a free and open-source cloud-computing software platform),“ said Janakiram MSV , founder and analyst at Janakiram & Associates.

According to a report by Rayno Media, which covers specific emerging technology markets in cloud technology, software-defined networking has a market size of $20 billion (. `1.31 lakh crore). The report also says that about $3 billion in startup exits have already hit this space, with an additional $600 million (. `3,961 crore) already being invested by venture capitalists.

The market in India is also picking up. “We already have customers in production in India. I think, very soon, we will be in a position to share public preferences also,“ said BS Nagarajan, director of systems engineering for India at VMware. “Remember, all -and this is not an overstatement -all entrepreneurs that are doing category creation are deluded. They're deluded, they only have this magic beans, this dream, for recruiting, for raising money, for everything,“ said Casado. And so, it is important to steer clear established of technologies.

Separately, RCom initiated contempt proceedings in the apex court against the Department of Telecommunications, blaming it for delaying a spectrum sale that would have enabled dues to be paid to Ericsson and lenders.